


Let me keep you instead

by bythegrace



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 04:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11006085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bythegrace/pseuds/bythegrace
Summary: A late night conversation between an engaged Sansa and her cousin brings truths to light.





	Let me keep you instead

She is at first aware of a stirring in the corner of her room, followed by the unmistakable clatter of someone ineptly trying to keep quiet. Had she not left a single candle burning on her bureau as was her custom she would no doubt scream in fear at the presence of a man in her bedchamber. Yet, the candlelight illuminates a head full of curls, springing in a familiarly unruly fashion from a head she knows as well as her own.

It is not who was in her bedchamber, but why which suddenly becomes the most salient question.

“Jon?” she whispers

A clatter and a clomp of boots was her response until he came close enough to the bed for her to notice his rather precarious sway, “Sansa,” he responds with a confused drawl, “Why are you in my bed?”

“Jon!” she hisses, pulling her bedclothes up around her more in indignation than modesty, “Are you disguised? This has not been your chamber for years, yours is the master’s chambers at the halls end,”

He responds with a moue of confusion and a rub of his eyes, as if to clear his head, “I think you’re right Sansa,” he says finally, “The thing of it is that I can’t seem to find it,” the last words are more a slur and are accompanied by a stagger towards her bedpost.

At this, all hopes of returning to sleep are put at last to rest and with a long suffering sigh Sansa swings her legs out of bed and hoists her cousin onto her thin shoulders. Her displeasure at finding Jon so inebriated is tempered by concern, in her lifelong acquaintance with Jon she has only seen him so disguised twice. The first was as children when he and Robb had partaken too deeply of ale at the harvest festival and spent the next morning alternating between sickness and regret. The second time had been after her parents and Robb’s funeral, but she had been too lost in her own grief to have had chastised him at the time. She remembers finding him in this very room, his back to the wall, bottles surrounding him. She had swept them aside with one hand and thrown herself against his chest and sobbed and sobbed as if she would never stop. The memory of that moment is like a tight band around her chest and she focuses on the steady weight of the man draped across her shoulders to bring herself back to the present day.

When they reach his room, she turns the door and leads him to his bed. “Shall I wake Sam?” she asks softly, powerless to resist smoothing some of the wayward curls from his brow. He screws open one eye and groans “I gave him the night off to go see his mother” before collapsing across his bed.

Sansa could groan herself at this point and realizes she isn’t too old to stamp her foot in frustration. She can’t let him sleep like this with his boots on, nor can she let the servants see him in such a state. To boot he’s given his valet/batsman the evening off. Rickon wouldn’t be of any help given his size, not that she would have the heart to wake him. So it’s up to her to pull of his boots and help him beneath the sheets despite the fact that he weighs quite a great deal more than she does.

The first boot comes off quickly, but the second requires quite a bit more effort and she’s red faced with exertion by the time she’s pushed his legs over. When she pulls the sheet over him she realizes she’ll have to loosen his cravat, she pulls at the fabric gingerly, relieved that it comes apart rather easily. By the time the smooth skin of his neck is revealed she’s startled to see him watching her, still glassy eyed but noticeably clearer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, the look on his face too comically chastened for her to stay angry with him. This doesn’t stop her from dramatically huffing “You should be” before perching on the bed at his side. Her mother would be aghast at her sitting on a gentleman’s bed in the middle of the night, but then again her mother would have been aghast at a great many things Sansa had done since her death.

Sansa can’t help pick absently at the bedcovering until his large warm hand covers hers, she looks up at him then, “why?” she asks simply, knowing she needn’t elaborate.

“Because he asked me,” he replies cryptically, his eyes half lidded, before turning his head away.

Sansa senses that his tongue is still loosened by the drink given the evasiveness of his behavior, and suddenly she must know what led him to inebriation. “What did he ask you?” she asks softly, assuming the he in question is her fiancé, Lord Harding, with whom Jon was supposed to discuss settlements this evening.

“He wants me to give you away,” He replies finally turning back towards her, “But I can’t,” he finishes.

“Lord Harding asked you to give me away?” she asks, “at the wedding? 

He nods mulishly, “but I don’t want to.”

Given that Jon is her guardian till she is of age, he would be the likely person her fiancé would ask to give her away, and she is far less interested in the question than in the reason for Jon’s refusal.

“Why don’t you want to give me away,” she asks, her voice soft as if not to break the spell.

He rubs his face with both his hands inelegantly and she has to grasp one by the wrist for him to answer her, “Jon!” she exclaims louder than she should.

“Because I want to keep you,” he says with a groan, but his eyes finally meet her own, dark and possessive, “I want to keep you for myself." 

She isn’t sure what she had been expecting but it hadn’t been that, she wants to ask him more but the urge to rise onto her feet is too great and she’s out the door before he’s turned away again. 

Sleep doesn’t come easily for either of them, but of course she has the advantage of him when she finally sails down to the breakfast the next morning. He looks doubly tortured, both from the effects of the drink and the dark knowledge that he revealed more of himself than he should to his cousin. The fact that she is unable to meet his eyes in front of Rickon and his governess is testament enough to his shame and he briefly contemplates drowning himself in Winterfell’s lake.

It’s to his infinite surprise that she asks to walk with him to the boat house after breakfast and he both longs to have the blasted conversation over and dreads the sorrowful dismissal of his feelings, he figures that she will let him down gently given the affection that had brewed between them the past few years.

When she takes his arm it’s a reminder of everything just beyond his grasp, and unlike always he doesn’t cover her hand with his own to keep out the chill, instead remaining still as stone.

They walk in silence till they are out of sight of the house, and when they finally cross the footbridge, she turns towards him without preamble, “Do you remember what you said to me last night?” her voice high, nearly breathless.

He could take the cowards path and say, no but he’s never lied to her before and he certainly can’t when she’s looking at him so imploringly. But he’s too tortured to say much more than “Aye”

“Did you mean it?” she asks, “I mean, did you mean that you wanted to keep me for yourself….as your wife?” her brows knit in consternation as she bleats out the last word almost helplessly.

This time he can’t do much more than give a short, terse, nod as he braces himself for her sorrowful refusal.

He’s wholly unprepared for her arms to come round him slowly and for the press of her body against his in an embrace unlike any other that they have shared, “then keep me” she whispers softly against his mouth. He feels for a moment more disoriented than the evening past, as if is arms and legs aren’t his own. He’s kissing her before he realizes it, his arms surrounding her of his own volition.

She’s unpracticed, but mystifyingly she kisses him back with the same wild abandon, and it’s only the recognition that they’re in the open that causes him to pull back.

“I love you,” she says before he’s had a moment to take a breath,

He opens his mouth and closes it, pressing his forehead to hers but he can’t suppress the smile that forms. “You had to say it first didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I could wait to get you disguised once more in order to admit how you feel,” she replies cheekily, her face alight with happiness.

He kisses her cheek, her eyes, the tip of her nose while she laughs merrily. “I never imagined,” he says softly, “That this could be real, that you could feel anything more for me than cousinly affection”

“Luckily, I imagined enough for the both of us,” she responds before stealing a kiss, “It was when you came home from the war” she says shyly, "You were a man, rather than my boyish cousin and then after...after everything, I knew all I ever wanted was to stay with you evermore.

Jon could be forgiven for being unable to recover immediately from a speech such as this, he whispers softly as he draws his arms around her tighter, "You're mine my dearest, darling girl, now and evermore, as I am yours," before sealing the promise with a kiss of his own.


End file.
